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Documentary Bromance Heartbreak

Kaleil Isaza Kuzman first showed signs of brutal business when the new company was looking for a domain name to get started. All his coworkers offered GovWorks.com or NexTown.com. Kaleil revealed his preferred company name as untoCaesar.com referencing Matthew 22:21:  

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

For a man previously touting that he does not like the idea of being associated with the government, associating himself with an military emperor seems a curious choice.

So what is about Caesar that Kaleil finds appealing? Could it be that he drawn to power, and believes that power brings spoils of war. Is he demanding that all that is below God is rightfully his, if he can only take it? In Startup.com, Kaleil seems to find business in parallel with war. He is ruthless, but approaches his public appearance as one of a campaign or propaganda. He is angry and rash behind closed doors, with words that cut deep, accentuated by a smile. His duplicity was made apparent to me from the beginning, so I was not surprised to find that he had been arrested for fraud post-film. 

The most tragic part of the story to me, was not so much the money lost, but the broken trust, and in the case of Chieh Cheung, the loss of a friend. It's curious to me that in it's rise, the World Wide Web quickly went from humanity's hope for connection to Wall Street's bloody knife, and likely remains so today. So many careers are made or broken by an internet presence, one that can quickly turn sour thanks to the advent of social media.

The relationship between Kaleil and Tom Herman almost came to a close and faced many trust issues along the path to short-lived success and ultimately, defeat. Kaleil seemed all too eager to kick Tom out of the business. I understand his reasoning, but his demeanor seemed both cold and calculated, perhaps because he was used to performing for audience by the time the fallout came around. 

Kaleil's hunger for money cost him several relationships along the way, not just his bromances. His girlfriend, Dora, eventually left and another woman and what seems to be another closes out the end of the documentary. Kaleil, the emperor seems to have lost more than just his money in his startup. He seems to have lost a little of his humanity, something the World Wide Web is known for taking.   

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